


Doorways

by Marsalias



Series: Doorways [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, Continuation, Danny is an eldritch horror, Danny is the portal, Funeral, Major character death - Freeform, Roadtrip, Unworld, but not onscreen, portal!Danny AU, second chapter written for dannymay day 19, so is the fourth chapter, the Fentons' weird college friends, third chapter written for ectober 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23063794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: Do Jack and Maddie have any normal friends? No. No, they do not. Do they have any friends who aren't doors to other planes of reality or hosts to ancient ghosts? That remains to be seen.
Series: Doorways [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657519
Comments: 71
Kudos: 451
Collections: The Witch's Woods





	1. Chapter 1

Despite the Fentons' best efforts, the death of Vladimir Masters was a media circus. It wasn't exactly surprising. He _was_ rich and famous, and he _had_ been murdered in what looked like a satanic ritual by a college friend, who had gone on to try to murder the son of two other college friends before dropping dead herself. It was a story made for the tabloids, except that it was true and, therefore, fair game for 'respectable' publications as well.

Danny wasn't sure he wanted to go, even now, standing in front of a mirror with a suit on. He supposed he owed it to Vlad to go, in some way, even if Vlad wouldn't, _couldn't_ know that he had gone. Considering what Gula-as-Serena-Goodrich had done to Vlad, if there was anything left of his soul or mind, it would be trapped in the Unworld, wandering and broken. If. Somehow, Danny doubted that there was anything left.

He dearly hoped that there was nothing left. An eternity in the Red Country was not something he would wish on even the very worst version of Vlad. He wouldn't wish it on _Dan._ The thought of unbeing, of falling into a nothing after death, was a hideous one, but the bare glimpse he had seen down Gula's gullet exceeded it.

But Vlad had been the only person like him. The only person who knew what it was like. It felt right, to mourn his passing. Funerals were for the living as much as the dead.

(Never mind that Danny was both and neither.)

He sighed, and pulled at his tie. It laid at an angle just large enough to be noticeable. Maybe he could ask Jazz, or Mom, for help. Or Dad. But he highly doubted Dad could tie a tie at all.

He left the bathroom and made his way downstairs, into the living room. He paused a moment, staring into the kitchen. It had been cleaned a dozen times since Danny had fought Gula there, with mundane means, technological ones, and spiritual ones. Still, something seemed to linger there. Whether that something was real or imagined, Danny couldn't say.

Jazz did agree that what had happened to him was pretty traumatic.

With some frustration, Danny pushed the thought away. This was _his_ house, _his_ haunt. Whatever it was would go away eventually, because he would make it go away. He pointedly walked through the very spot Gula had caught him, calling on a sense of victory he hadn't felt in the moment of Gula's defeat.

He frowned at the cabinets. He couldn't eat anything, not now. He'd spill something on his suit.

Upstairs, he could hear the rest of his family still getting ready. The clock on the stove claimed that Danny was ready a full twenty minutes before their 'optimistic departure time,' thirty minutes before their 'realistic' time, and forty before their 'desperate' time.

He descended into the lab. The portal, _his_ portal, swirled on the other side. He walked to it, slowly, feeling himself calm as he approached.

Even now, he didn't fully understand his connection to it. It was a part of him, yes. He was a hole in the world, yes. He was a bridge, yes. A door, yes. The portal was his, and it was him, but... He knew, deeply, that he was all those other things even without the portal here, in the basement.

_Here,_ in the basement.

... There was something to that, but he wasn't sure what.

He raised his hand to touch the surface of the portal. The portal, it was an extension of him, but _he_ was the real doorway.

"Danny, are you down here?"

Danny turned away from the portal, and the inklings he had gathered up drained away through the fingers of his mind, falling back towards the core of his being, as they always did.

"Yes?" he called, even as Mom climbed down the stairs.

She was wearing a dress, and there were dark circles under her eyes. The light of the portal danced across them eerily. She paused, halfway across the room, her eyes fixed over Danny's shoulder.

"We're almost ready to go," she said.

"Okay," said Danny. He tipped his head to one side, questioning. She hadn't needed to come all the way down here, to tell him that.

"Is it _really_ you?" she asked, her eyes still on the portal.

Danny looked over his shoulder, and made a face. "Yeah. It is. It's... I don't know how to explain it." He shrugs. "I mean, I can't even explain it to myself."

He gave her a half-smile when he looked back, but she just looked haunted.

After a long, quiet moment, she seemed to catch herself. "We should go," she said, giving a little nod before turning away.

Danny sucked his lips against his teeth, but followed. It hadn't been long. Mom and Dad were still adjusting. _He_ was still adjusting.

He followed Mom upstairs.

.

The funeral was... Interesting. Vlad had been something of a recluse, for a billionaire, but he had still known many, many people. Famous people. Celebrities. Important people. Wealthy people. Politicians. Some of them acted shockingly carefree. Others were incredibly dramatic.

Danny felt himself bristling. None of these people had _known_ Vlad. Not really.

He imagined that Vlad would laugh at his thoughts and say that Danny was being a child and that, of course, Vlad had a life outside of Danny and the Fentons.

But it would have been a lie.

Danny pulled at the hem of his suit jacket and looked around with feigned interest. He had been in Vlad's Amity Park mansion more times than he would like to admit, and the executor hadn't been able to find anywhere else suitably opulent in town for the viewing and reception. Vlad's body lay in state in his own home. Where he had been murdered. By a monster that was half metaphor and likely had more in common with him than any human.

Danny stomped down on that thought. Hard.

(Because if that was true about Vlad, it was true about Danny.)

This was all wrong. It all felt wrong. This didn't feel like Vlad's house. All of the furniture had been moved around, the horrifically tasteless Packers memorabilia had been removed, the music was the wrong kind, there were too many people, and-

-and Danny couldn't feel Vlad's portal humming under his feet.

He had always wondered how Vlad had brought it here from Wisconsin. He'd never gotten the chance to ask. No. He'd _rejected_ the chance to ask. For good reason, yes, but he had always hoped...

It didn't matter, now.

"Danny," whispered Jazz, leaning close, "are you okay?"

Danny blinked rapidly. The tears in his eyes retreated to their proper places. He was not going to cry over a man who beat him up once a week.

"I'm fine."

.

There wasn't much of a line to view Vlad's body. Danny stood at the back of it and averted his eyes as a semi-famous actress bawled her eyes out over the casket. There were memorial photos everywhere, surrounded by bright wreaths of flowers. Marigolds, lilies, roses, mums... So much death. He was half surprised no one had laid out blood blossoms.

He reached out and touched a lily, the soft white petal flexing under his fingertips, the anther shedding pollen on the ground. Everything was so clear and bright, yet, at the same time, hazy. Like Danny's reality had been upended once again. He let his hand fall back to his side.

The line inched forward.

Because this was Vlad, the viewing area was marked off with velvet ropes, and only one person was allowed to approach at a time. There was a security guard in a black suit standing at the ready, to make sure people followed the rules.

Dad went up first, looming over the casket, ignoring the kneeler. He fidgeted, adjusting his tie, then the hem of his suit jacket. He didn't speak, opening and closing his mouth, but seeming to think better of his words each time. Anger and regret flashed over his face in equal measure. Finally, after what seemed like a prolonged internal struggle, he bent close.

"I'll miss you, old friend."

Mom went up next. She hadn't been very close to Vlad. Not at the end. Not after his heavy-handed attempts to seduce her. Danny thought she might understand more, now, might understand why Vlad had changed.

Maybe that's why she glanced back at him, uneasy.

Danny let himself sag in disappointment. Maybe it was selfish in this setting, but he didn't want to be feared. Not by his family.

She didn't stay with Vlad for long.

Jazz looked back at Danny, questioning. He shook his head, motioning for her to go first.

Mom stood off to the side, waiting. She didn't look at Danny.

Either Jazz didn't have much to say, or the blood rushing through his ears drowned her out. That left Danny.

He walked up slowly, his footfalls loud against Vlad's hardwood floors. At first, he couldn't bring himself to look in the casket, to look at what remained of Vlad. Instead, he traced patterns in the casket's dark red wood. It looked expensive. So did the flower arrangements and the casket's soft silk lining.

With great trepidation, he let his eyes fall on Vlad.

He closed them almost immediately. It was wrong. It was wrong, to see him like this, without a world under his skin, without life, soul, or meaning. It wasn't Vlad anymore.

He turned away.

.

After the internment, Danny was aware he was eating too much at the refreshments table. More than was socially acceptable, anyway. He kept getting glares from people he vaguely recognized.

It wasn't his fault. Some people ate when they were upset. Jazz said so. Besides, being half-ghost took up a lot of energy.

He shoved another cookie into his mouth and tried to focus on the way the chocolate chips melted on his tongue.

"Danny," said Mom.

He jumped. Somehow, he had lost track of his family in his contemplation.

"The executor wants to speak with us."

"Me too?" asked Danny, blinking, and surreptitiously shaking crumbs off of his hands.

"Yes, you too. Apparently Vlad wanted you to hear his will read."

"Oh," said Danny, the inside of his mouth drying out.

Did Vlad leave him something? No. That was impossible. Vlad hated him. He was shocked that Vlad even had a will, let alone that it mentioned him.

He followed Mom slowly, snagging a cracker from the end of the table. A few other people were making their way in the same direction, toward the door leading to Vlad's more 'public' office, although some were being turned away by the burly men outside. They let Danny and Mom through with sharp nods.

The executor, a broad-shouldered businessman, sat at Vlad's desk, papers arranged neatly before him, hands folded. There were few people here, and only two open seats, right at the front. With some amusement, he noted that they were labeled. Leave it to Vlad to find a way to keep Mom and Dad from sitting next to each other at his funeral...

"Well," said the executor, as Danny and Mom sat down, "now that we are _all_ here," he gave Danny a look, but then turned it to a group in the corner, "we can begin."

Danny turned to look over his shoulder. There was an older couple, and a middle-aged woman. All of them were frowning.

They looked, Danny thought, a little like Vlad. Actually, a lot of the people here looked like Vlad. Were they relatives? If so, Danny had never heard Vlad mention them.

He inadvertently caught a man's eye, and flinched away from the violent glare. Everyone grieved differently, and Danny had been holding things up, apparently, but that was a bit much, wasn't it? Danny hadn't done anything to them.

The executor tore open the sealed envelope in front of him and worked his way through a generic sounding preamble, and then got to the body of the will. It was here that Vlad's voice came through. Mostly because it was so _mean._

"... To my Uncle Jeffrey Price, I leave my shares in Lake Lauren Soap Supplies. I would, however, advise him to sell the shares for the purposes of buying actual soap, something which he does infrequently. To my cousin Liliya, I leave my Edition 8 Black Band Karter K watch. Perhaps then she will finally be on time..."

The atmosphere in the room got heavier and angrier as the list went on. A couple of times Danny had to bite on his knuckles to keep from laughing or crying. It was just so _Vlad_ to lure a bunch of people he hated into a room with promises of wealth only to insult them one last time. His and his family's presence made more sense, in that context. Vlad would probably leave him a fancy chessboard and a snide comment about how he'd never use it because he was too stupid.

Which was just fine with Danny. He'd use that chessboard every day and feel like he was still getting one up on Vlad.

"To my father, I leave five dollars and my Mercedes Benz, license plate 223 RBC. Put together, you should be able to pick up that gallon of milk you left for all those years ago."

The man in the corner stood up, and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

"To my mother, I give ten thousand dollars." There was no explanation, but for some reason this had the woman running out, too.

"To my sister, Larisa, I give my cabin in Maine, details following, and five-hundred thousand dollars to be managed by a trust set up for this purpose, details following." The woman raised her hand to cover her mouth, and nodded.

The list moved into names Danny didn't recognize and small things. A book here and there. An endowment for a university. The gifting of a piece of art. All of it seemed somehow more genuine than what had come before, except for his sister's gift. Sometimes, his parents would tense, but no one else in the room reacted. Danny came to the conclusion that these people simply weren't here.

It made him sad, on Vlad's behalf.

"To Serena Goodrich... ah..." For the first time, the executor stumbled. He glanced around the room, licked his lips and swallowed. "To Serena Goodrich, I give the crystal collection I keep in the cabinet in my blue sitting room. I know you were always jealous of it."

Danny shook his head, trying to rid himself of the buzzing sensation that had overtaken him. It seemed like he was not the only one unsettled by the inclusion of the name.

"To my dear friends, Jack and Madeline Fenton, I leave all my ghost-related patents, details to follow, my blueprints, my partial work, and my other scientific equipment, details to follow, and a sum of five hundred thousand dollars to support their research, to be held in trust, details to follow."

Interesting, but Danny could see the logic behind it. If this bequest had been made before his parents knew about him, it could have ensured him no end of grief.

He rubbed his hands on the sides of his pants. Surely, they had to be getting towards the end, but Danny knew Vlad had far more wealth, not to mention all his companies, that hadn't even been mentioned. Perhaps Vlad had left it to charity to spite his relatives? That would fit with everything else in the will so far.

"To my goddaughter, Jasmine Fenton, I leave my collection of rare books, a list of which is included later in this document. I believe that you will be a better caretaker than your brother."

Danny exchanged a look with his sister. He didn't particularly care for the sound of that, and not just because of the insult. It sort of sounded like he had _considered_ giving Danny the books, but had decided against it.

"Jasmine will also receive the Master's Scholarship, which will pay her way through any college she wishes to attend."

The executor took a deep breath and sipped from a glass of water.

"Finally," he continued, and everyone except Danny leaned forward, anticipatory. Danny, on the other hand, leaned back. "Finally, in my business concerns, fortune, properties, and all other possessions, concerns, and obligations, here and elsewhere, not previously mentioned in this document, I name my godson, Daniel Fenton, my heir. Details to follow."

.

Getting home was a blur. So was everything else.

_Here and elsewhere._

Ancients, if Vlad had somehow managed to drag him into some ghostly debt or vendetta with that line... Well, there wasn't really anything he could do about it if he did. Danny would just have to sort it out, as per usual.

His hands flexed around the envelope the executor had given him. Some kind of final words from Vlad. He didn't want to look.

When had he gotten into the kitchen?

"What?" he said out loud, looking between the concerned faces of his family.

"Are you okay, Danny?" asked Mom, pushing a steaming mug into his hands.

Had they been home long enough to make tea? Wow.

"I'm just a little out of it, I guess," said Danny. "I really wasn't expecting that." He let his inner ice rise to his hands, cooling the tea enough to drink comfortably. "I _really_ wasn't expecting that. I just..." He pointedly did not look at the letter. "It's a lot. I won't have to worry about money, though?" He offered. "At least, not until I have to deal with... all that."

He was ridiculously, profoundly grateful that Vlad had stipulated that all of Danny's inheritance would go into a trust until he was twenty-five. He simply had no idea where to even begin.

"I don't understand," he said, looking at his tea. "We hated each other."

.

Danny opened the letter later that night. It wasn't in English. The symbols and glyphs swam and burned in front of his eyes and left his tongue tasting of pepper. They weren't translatable, but they left their meaning inscribed on the surface of his mind.

He collapsed back onto the bed, a trickle of blood running from his nose.

Couldn't Vlad have come up with a less dramatic way of getting his thoughts across? Maybe? For once?

Danny rubbed his eyes.

'His heir in all things, in this world and the next,' huh?

Danny just wished Vlad could have gotten over himself while he was still alive.

.

"Danny, Jazz," said Jack, the next day. "We, your mother and I, have been thinking. But we want you two to be on board, too."

"Okay," said Jazz, looking up from her book and shifting into a sitting position on her bed. "What's going on?"

Danny, in turn, looked up from the homework Jazz was helping him with. His parents looked odd, wedged into the doorway like that. "Maybe we should go downstairs," he said, "if this is important."

It was. So they did.

They had been using the formal dining room more often, ever since the more-intense-than-usual supernatural battle in the kitchen. It felt weird, none of the chairs matched, and the room was more than a bit dusty, but Mom and Dad hadn't been bringing ectoweapons into the dining room to tinker with them, so it had that going for it.

"So," said Jazz, awkwardly and heroically taking the lead. "What's up."

"Well," said Mom. "You remember that Jack, Vlad, S-Serena, and I were all in the Paranormal Research Club together in college?"

Danny wrinkled his nose, and decided to latch onto the least disturbing detail of that sentence. "I thought it was the Ghost Research Club?"

"That _was_ what the three of us, that is, Vlad, Jack, and I, called ourselves, sometimes," said Mom. "But the actual organization was the Paranormal Research Club, and it was... somewhat more extensive."

"Vladdy put a lot of them in his will," said Dad. He frowned, a deep furrow appearing between his eyebrows. "Hardly any of them came."

"Oh," said Danny. He didn't see where this was going, but the look on Jazz's face said that she might.

"The thing is," said Mom, "we shared our research from back then with the club. The _whole_ club. That was the point. Considering what happened to Vlad and Serena..."

"You're not suggesting we go check them, are you?" asked Jazz.

"You have to admit," said Dad. "Even I have to admit," he sighed, "we are responsible."

"No," said Jazz, forcefully. "Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you could get into? You could die! Even if you didn't, even if you defeated everyone who got into that kind of trouble, what would you do with them? Kill them? People would put together the trail of bodies."

"We were hoping it wouldn't come to that," said Mom, wincing. "Hopefully, Serena and Vlad were flukes-"

"And Danny, too?" asked Jazz, crossing her arms.

"-and we won't have to do anything. But we have to check. Danny, what do you think?"

"I don't-" started Danny, then he reconsidered, biting his lower lip. "Part of the reason," he said slowly, "that I was able to defeat Gula, was because I was on home ground. You didn't even notice anything was off about her at first. I didn't notice at first. Not with her _or_ Vlad." He paused. "You could invite them here, but how would you be able to tell? What if they're just like me? What then?" He understood where they were coming from, but the idea of his parents facing something like Gula alone made him sick to his stomach.

"We've put some things together," said Mom. "Our close range scanners did detect you and Vlad, after all. We just thought that was an error."

"I don't know if they'd pick up something like Gula, though. Gula was... fundamentally different," said Danny, doubtfully. "Gula wasn't a ghost."

"Danny," hissed Jazz, "you can't be thinking of going along with this. Look what happened to Vlad."

"I don't know," said Danny, sinking down into his seat and picking at the edge of the table. "I don't like the idea of something like Gula running around and eating people, and it would be nice to find someone who, you know, isn't crazy, I just..." He sighed.

"We've put together some prototypes," said Dad. "For finding and fighting... Whatever was in Serena. We just don't know if they'll work or not."

"And until then..." continued Mom, before trailing off.

"Until then, you want _Danny_ to fight," said Jazz, crossing her arms.

"Not necessarily!" protested Mom. "Just to be on the lookout. To be... aware."

Jazz regarded Mom suspiciously. "You've already invited some of them over, haven't you? The ones who came for the funeral."

Dad winced. "I hadn't really thought it through," he said. "I got excited to see them, and it just... came out? We hadn't quite realized the possibility that there might be others like- like Serena. Not until the will, and all those names..."

Danny closed his eyes. He couldn't even be mad. "It's probably fine," he said. "I didn't feel anything at the funeral. They're probably all normal."

"Danny, you said, less than a minute ago, that you _couldn't_ sense Serena, or whatever it was."

"How many of them?" asked Danny, choosing to ignore the fact that Jazz was right. "And if I'd been _looking_ , I would have noticed."

"Two," said Maddie. "Only two. Brianna and George. And their son," she added. "Mitchell. He's a little older than Jazz. He wasn't at the funeral, but I know he came with them."

"Great," said Danny. He already dislike Mitchell. "When are they coming?"

"Tonight."

.

To be perfectly honest, this wasn't much different in feeling than meals shared with Vlad. College friends of his parents, questionable moral character, intense social discomfort, potential involvement of supernatural entities... It had the works.

At least, that's what Danny kept telling himself as he set the table. He was more nervous than he'd let on to his parents. Yes, he was confident he could hold his own against just about anything on home ground, but that was anything. Singular.

Numbers would be a problem.

If more than one of them was a door to the Unworld, he doubted he'd be able to handle it. That possibility didn't seem likely to him, but then the whole thing with Gula hadn't seemed likely to him, before it happened.

"What did Brianna and George do?" asked Danny, placing a fork with nervous precision. "In your club, I mean."

Mom sighed, her voice echoing in the kitchen. "Well, if I recall correctly, George was always playing around with radio equipment. EMF meters, spirit boxes, that kind of thing. Of course, we disproved most of what he was basing his work on years ago. I don't know if he's still working on that. Brianna... She liked to think she was 'sensitive.' You know that movie, _the 6th Sense_? Like that."

"Oh. Was she?"

"I don't know," admitted Mom. "I think they got normal jobs, later, but that doesn't mean that they didn't keep things up, quietly, like Vlad did. They did chase after all sorts of ridiculous urban legends, though."

"Like what?" asked Danny. "Just, you know, trying to get an idea of what to expect." If Mom thought they were ridiculous, he had to hear them.

"Ah, the only one I remember right now is something about a demon guarding a bridge." She shook her head. "Demons don't even exist."

"Yes, they do," said Danny, frowning, because, honestly, that was where she drew the line?

The doorbell rang. Well. Shrieked. The doorbell shrieked as the maybe-not-entirely-human guests he might have to fight in a few minutes begged entry, because Ancients forbid that _anything_ be normal in this house. Even the cutlery was ghost shaped.

Ah. No. While he was perfectly justified in resenting how his parents' choices affected him, he really didn't have any room to talk when it came to normality, and he wouldn't want it any other way. Besides, most days, he liked the doorbell. He thought it was funny.

But most days the people ringing it weren't so much of a threat. Potential threat, he reminded himself, taking a deep breath. He checked the ectoweapons tapped to the bottom of the table before going to answer the door. They had, after arguments, agreed that it would be safer for him than than the rest of his family.

"Hello," said Danny. "You must be the Keens." His eyes flicked over them, up and down. They looked normal. Incredibly normal. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Inoffensive clothing. Average faces.

They were smiling. Widely. All three of them.

Suspicious.

He reached out to them with his ghostly senses as they offered him route greetings, letting the information slowly filter through his ghost half. Sometimes the direct signals were a little too much for his human brain, and that's what was in charge right now.

Not really able to pay attention to anything but that, Danny smiled vaguely, and stood aside to let them in.

They didn't make a move to enter.

Brianna said something, and he let up on his focus enough to say, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that?"

"Aren't you going to invite us in?" she asked, again, annoyance edging her words.

Danny stared at the large, open space between him and the other side of the door, then turned his gaze back to the family of three. He tilted his head.

"What are you, vampires?" he asked. Rudeness would be forgiven, he was sure, even if they were human. He'd just gone through a traumatic experience, and a close family friend was dead.

Another quick scowl passed over Brianna's face, but it was covered quickly by a blinding smile. She made her way up the steps, followed by her husband and son. They each flinched as they crossed the threshold.

Danny smiled bitterly at their backs. None of them were holes in reality, but they weren't all human, either.

His eyelids dropped as he watched them. Alright. He could work with this. He hadn't encountered very many genuine possessions, most ghosts found them to be offensive, but there had been a few.

He wasn't sure if he should be bothered that yet another one of his parents' college friends has something weird going on, or if he should be relieved that it's something relatively simple.

But only relatively. Overshadowing would have been ridiculously easy to solve, even if it was long-term. All he'd have to do was grab the offender and pull them out. Mind control was harder, but once the means, be it a crystal ball, rock music, or a chlorophyll-laden runner, was removed, so was the mind control.

Possession was... harder. Harder to detect, and harder to combat. Crueler, as well. Assuming, of course, that the participants weren't willing, which opened up a whole new range of possibilities.

At least he had a hint. The possessor could cross a threshold uninvited, but didn't like it. Admittedly, that could be simple personal preference, leftover from a life where hospitality held more sway, or a game it played, but Danny didn't think so.

He watched their backs as they interacted with Mom and Dad, watched them move. There was something about it that struck him as wrong.

George raised his hand, and Danny saw it, the twitch of Brianna's and Mitchell's. One entity possessing three people, then. That made things both easier and harder. Easier, because he only had to get rid of one thing, harder, because it had three different people to hide in and manipulate.

What he needed was bread. Maybe a bit of salt.

.

By this point, Danny was pretty sure the culprit was a ghost. A very old, very strange ghost, but still a ghost. Possibly one of the ones that served as inspiration for 'faeries,' once upon a time. There were a lot of those, actually. That's why stories about faeries were so convoluted and contradictory.

He had it on good authority that _Tam Lin_ was a true story.

Despite the ghost's probable age, they had adapted well to modern life. They avoided bread by claiming they were on a carb-free diet. They conversed readily about technology. If he hadn't been actively looking, he would never have guessed that they were possessed.

That was a scary thought.

Danny wasn't anywhere near figuring out how to get rid of the ghost, however. Even snatched conversations with his parents didn't yield any ideas. They had a couple inventions that could deal with overshadowing, but they had never encountered a true possession before. They had thought that recorded possessions were just overshadowing with a different name. Danny tried to explain the difference, but while it was instantly apparent from a ghostly perspective, it was impossible to make it so in a minute's worth of whispering to a human, so he dropped it.

They _had_ made one thing that could combat possession. The Ghost Catcher. However, Danny had... destroyed it. With prejudice. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

But, honestly, he shouldn't have done that. He had rescued Tucker from a possession with the Ghost Catcher, after all. In other news, Danny could be a bit of an idiot, sometimes, even if he was also an inter-dimensional horror.

Although, that was _how_ he became an inter-dimensional horror, so.

Anyway.

That's why Danny was in his room, googling faeries. He hadn't tried bells, yet. Maybe that would work? Or did they have to be blessed?

Did he even have any bells in the house?

Danny could just ask the ghost what they were here for. They had to have a reason. They wouldn't expose themselves to ghost hunters for no reason, right?

He felt along his connection to his haunt, watching the Keens. They just... hadn't done anything, yet. Nothing that would indicate what they were interested in. No hostile moves.

Wait. One of them had broken away. Oh. Of course. Danny rolled his eyes and stepped into the hallway.

Brianna Keen walked up the stairs. Danny could see Dad's shadow behind her. The people who thought of Dad as nothing more than a loud buffoon (aka Vlad) would be shocked to see this. Dad could be quiet, when he really needed to be.

"Can I help you?" asked Danny. Hospitality had not been observed by them or him, but everything had been civil enough so far.

Except for, well, the possession. That was pretty bad.

"You have your humans well-trained, child."

Oh, this was going to be one of _those_ conversations, wasn't it? He raised an eyebrow, daring them to continue.

"Excuse me? Trained?"

"And you've established yourself quite nicely, here." The ghost was coming forward, now, showing more in Brianna's gestures and the flashes of the backs of her eyes. "It's cute. But, a place like this, it's dangerous, isn't it?"

"How so?"

"For a ghost like you, possessing a hunter's son? Must I spell it out?"

Danny blinked, and tilted his head. They had no idea what he was. Interesting. This could be... fun. Danny rarely indulged it, but he did have a slight, ghostly, predisposition to mischief and frightening people.

"Do you suggest a solution?" asked Danny, curious. His eyes flicked briefly to Dad's shadow. He hoped this wouldn't give Dad _doubts._ It was just a few days ago the Gula had convinced him and Mom that he was possessed.

"Come with me," said the ghost. "If you prefer this age, you can have the boy. If not, then the man."

"What do you get out of it?"

The ghost inside Brianna examined her fingernails. "It would be useful, to gain an ally. I suspect we each have skills the other lacks."

"Are you lonely?" asked Danny. If that was the case, perhaps they could be convinced to leave via the portal.

The ghost made a clicking sound. "Hardly. There are plenty of humans around. Some are even interesting. No."

"Then what?" asked Danny.

"I only wish to provide a safe place for another of my kind. Is that too much to believe? Have humans corrupted you so?"

"It is hard to believe. How long have you been possessing these people, anyway?"

"Oh, ever since this rude woman disturbed me from my rest. She has some small psychic ability. Nothing impressive." The ghost shook Brianna's head. "She didn't observe even the barest of courtesies."

"Like how you wouldn't break bread with us."

"Or like how you did not invite me in," countered the ghost. "Still, I cannot blame you for that. It would be foolish to so easily give up an advantage over a potential enemy."

This wasn't how Danny had envisioned this confrontation going at all.

"Possessing her _and_ her family is a little extreme, though, isn't it?"

"Perhaps by the standards humans embrace today, but I am well justified. I did not enter into their home. They entered into mine. What did the Fenton boy do to you, that you have taken him?"

Ah. Now, that had gone too far, and this wasn't getting anywhere. Danny crossed his arms, trying to hide his unease.

"I think," said Danny, tapping into his powers just slightly, in a way he was fairly certain a ghost possessing a human couldn't, "that you've misunderstood something important, here."

At first the ghost scowled, but then their eyes went wide. "Liminal... You, a doorway? No." They started to back away. "I would have felt it! I felt Superbia!"

"Would you have? Trying to keep three people together?" Danny was just throwing out random guesses. He was, however, rather disturbed by how quickly the ghost had grasped what he was. Most never did. He'd just been trying to show that he wasn't possessing himself, just trying to show that his powers weren't hampered by his flesh.

Also, who or what was Superbia? Another door?

The ghost waved a hand. "I apologize for my misapprehension. But, you can see, all this time, I have meant you no harm."

"No," said Danny. "But, even though I don't know the Keens, they _are_ my parents' friends."

The ghost fell silent. Danny could vaguely feel them reaching out, searching, pushing through the veils and strands of power that connected him to his haunt. They reached the lab and immediately withdrew, as if burned.

"You can't push me out," said the ghost. "You don't know how."

"Maybe not," said Danny. "But Mom and Dad can probably figure out how, if they have enough time. I just have to keep you from going anywhere."

At some point during the conversation, Dad had crept closer. Danny could now see the top of his head.

"I see," said the ghost. "Well. And my alternative?"

"Just let them go. If you don't hurt anyone else, I won't come after you."

"I've hardly hurt her. I've given her just what she asked for."

"You know what I mean," said Danny.

"I suppose I do. Very well."

.

"That was anticlimactic."

"Don't complain," said Danny, throwing a pillow at his sister. She stuck her tongue out at him. "I might have lost a fight. They were old, and they used rules I didn't know."

"Will they remember?" asked Mom.

They were in the living room, the Keens draped, unconscious, over the furniture. They hadn't stirred since the ghost had left them.

"It depends," said Danny, shrugging. "Tucker remembered, when he was possessed. But he wasn't possessed for very long, and it was a different type of possession."

"Tucker was possessed?" asked Mom, surprised. "When?"

"A while ago. But Mr. Salash didn't. And Karen remembered everything that happened while she was possessed, but didn't remember the possession part, or any of the ghostly stuff. She thought she just made a bunch of weird decisions, or something."

"Who's Karen?" asked Dad. "A friend of yours?" He grinned in a way that turned the word 'friend' into 'girlfriend.'

"No, gross. She's the children's librarian at the library. She's, like, a decade older than me."

"And Mr. Salash?" asked Jazz.

"Seriously, guys? He owns the little grocery store across the street from the downtown Nasty Burger. Do you not know anyone who lives here?"

"We hardly ever go to that grocery store," pointed out Jazz.

"Do you know why some of them remembered, and some of them didn't?" asked Mom.

"No idea. I guess it could be that there are different kinds of possession, but I don't really know anything about that. I try not to even overshadow people."

The look Mom gave him indicated that she still didn't understand the difference between overshadowing and possession, despite his much longer explanation. He sighed.

"I hope they do remember, though," he said.

"Why?" asked Jazz.

"Because of something the ghost said to me. Have either of you ever heard of Superbia?"

"The sin?" asked Jazz. "Like, pride?"

"I think it might be a door."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written for Dannymay Day 19: Doors.

Life could be interesting when your best friend was a human and a ghost _and_ an inter-dimensional portal all at the same time. Usually, it was the bad kind of interesting. The kind of interesting that resulted in bruises and broken broken bones, sleepless nights and failing grades, and other inconveniences. But that didn't mean that Tucker wanted Danny _gone._

"A road trip? Just like that?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "Mom and Dad think that some of their other college friends might have kept up the ghost stuff and gotten into trouble."

"You mean like that Serena person? The one who killed Vlad?" asked Sam from where she lay on top of her bed covers.

"Well, she _is_ why they're worried about it," said Danny. He played with one of the the strands of Sam's shag throw rug, his back supported by one pillar of Sam's bed. "But I think that their other friends being the victims of a long-term possession really convinced them of the possibility. Also, we've started getting people harassing us because of the money thing, and they're hoping that they'll get bored if we disappear for a while."

"They've really thought it out, huh?" asked Tucker, melancholy.

"Jazz is the one who pointed out the other things, actually. I think she was trying to make herself feel better about missing school. Mom and Dad are going to home school us while we're on the road."

"Really?" asked Sam, scrunching her nose.

"Yeah," said Danny. "I mean, it'll probably be Jazz doing the work and organization, though. You know how it is."

"Do you know how long you'll be?" asked Sam.

"Nope," said Danny. "It'll be longer if any of the rest of them _did_ get into trouble, though."

"What kind of trouble are we talking about, anyway?"

"Yeah," said Tucker. "Ghosts? Possessions? Whatever was going on with Serena?"

"Third one, probably," said Danny, "sadly." He shifted, holding his hands so that he could massage the palm of his left hand with his right thumb. "She was a door... but not to the Ghost Zone. It wasn't even her anymore, really. She'd been hollowed out."

For a couple seconds, the only sound in the room was the whirring disk drive of Sam's computer.

"If it is something like Serena," said Tucker, "will you be able to handle it? Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounded like it was a pretty close thing when you told us what happened with her, and, well, she killed _Vlad._ "

Danny shrugged. "I'll be prepared, this time," he said, "and I'll have Mom and Dad on my side. The first time facing an enemy is always the hardest."

"But you'll be away from the portal," said Sam. Unlike Tucker, she no longer shied away from some of the more unnerving aspects of Danny's half-life. Not to say that she was _comfortable_ with any of it.

A slight frown crossed Danny's face, and his eyes got that impossibly deep look that signified that he was communing with the part of himself that was simply _beyond_ human or ghost. "Yeah," he said. "No home field advantage. I think I should be alright, though. Speaking of the portal in the lab, Mom and Dad are closing the blast doors over it. With Vlad gone, and me out of town, there should be a lot fewer ghost for you to handle. Most of the natural portals should follow me." He smiled and gave the two of them thumbs up. "You should be able to let Valerie do most of the work."

"Dude," said Tucker. "That makes us more worried for you, not less."

"Do you know where you're going?" asked Sam. "If it's somewhere fancy, I might be able to convince my parents to-"

 _"No,_ " said Danny, sharply, eyes wide. He twisted to fully face Sam, who had startled somewhat. "Absolutely not. I don't want Mom, Dad, and Jazz near one of those things, but they're insisting. I don't want you guys to be at risk, too."

"You know," said Tucker, "that really undercuts your whole 'I'll be fine' argument."

Danny huffed. "You weren't there. You didn't see- It wasn't just that it was dangerous," he said, making vague shapes with his hands, "it was _wrong._ I don't want you to be- to be _exposed_."

"If you're sure," said Sam.

.

Tucker and Danny walked home from Sam's together.

"Hey," said Tucker after a few minutes of companionable silence, "are you doing okay?"

"Hm? Yeah, I'm fine."

"Just, with Vlad and all... You know you can talk to me, right?"

Danny gave Tucker a rather wan smile. "Thanks," he said. "Vlad and I didn't get along, but..." He shrugged. "I didn't hate him, and now he's gone." Danny sighed, heavily. "It sucks, but I can't do anything about it."

"Yeah," said Tucker, feeling useless. "I guess not. I'll miss you, by the way."

"Me too. I'll call whenever I can."

"Same," said Tucker. "Won't be the same as having you."

"Less stressful, maybe," said Danny, playfully.

"I wouldn't trade it."

Danny smiled. "Thanks."


	3. Darkness/Poison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Ectober Week 2020

The Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle did not have the smoothest ride in the world, but Danny was used to it. Also, he had driven the Specter Speeder through the Carnivorous Canyon and ridden in Johnny 13’s sidecar.

Point being, if his parents didn’t _want_ him to fall asleep, they should have told him. Or, at least, not dragged him out of bed at four thirty in the morning (both to get an early start and to avoid the reporters and other undesirables who had taken to circling Fentonworks like vultures).

Look. Danny might have been an unspeakable eldritch horror, a superhero, and one of the richest human beings on the face of the Earth, but he was also a teenager. Not to mention sleep deprived. 

Besides, Mom and Dad had said their next Paranormal Research Club friend was miles and miles away. They wouldn’t reach his town until much later in the day. Danny had plenty of time to sleep safely. 

Which is why he was so disgruntled when Dad shook him awake with a cheery “We’re here!”

“Where’s here?” asked Danny, rubbing his eyes and noting sadly how far away his portal back in Amity Park was. 

“Breakfast,” said Jazz, voice heavy with sleep. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one trying to take advantage. 

“’Kay,” said Danny, briefly wrestling with the seatbelt. He caught Mom staring as he opened the door. “What?” he asked frowning. 

“Nothing,” she said, unconvincingly.

Whatever. Danny could figure it out later, when he was more awake. He jumped to the ground. 

“I think you guys will really like it here!” said Dad, waving at the building. “The food’s great! An old friend owns the place. Your mom and I used to come here all the time before you were born, when we were commuting between Amity and Chicago.”

Danny nodded along, staring up at the neon sign that read ‘Red Flower Dinner.’ Then his brain caught up, and he slowly turned his head to look at Dad. 

“’Old friend,’” he said. “What do you _mean_ old friend?”

Dad blinked at him, uncomprehending. Jazz came to his rescue. 

“Dad, we’re doing this whole trip because all of your old friends are lunatics,” she explained. 

“They’re not!” said Dad, defensively. “Besides, Marianne was never part of our club. She didn’t even go to U of M.”

“She was a waitress at our favorite hangout,” explained Mom. “She got enough saved to buy this restaurant around the time we graduated. She’s few years older than us.”

“Saved? I thought a relative died, and she got an inheritance?” asked Dad.

Danny groaned. “Do you not see how suspicious that is?”

“Come on, Danno! We can have normal friends.”

“No, you can’t. If a normal thing ever interacts with our family in any way, it immediately becomes abnormal simply because of how _unlikely_ it is for anything like that to happen.” He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. 

“He’s got a point,” said Jazz. “Maybe we could go to a different dinner?”

“But,” said Dad, “she makes the _best_ breakfast. And she really is normal. She wasn’t involved in any ghost stuff.”

“Are you really telling me you never talked to her about ghost stuff at all?” asked Danny, suspiciously. 

“Well, we did,” said Dad. “But we talk to everyone about ghost stuff.” 

“Dad…”

Dad inhaled and heaved a huge sigh, shoulders sagging. “Alright, Danno. I get what you’re saying. We can go somewhere else… Even if it won’t be as good.”

Okay. Now Danny felt bad. 

Unfair. 

“Well,” he said. “I guess we could check and make sure she’s not, you know, haunted or anything. That’s why we’re doing this, I guess.”

Dad brightened immediately, and Danny had to grab the back of his shirt to keep him from running in. 

“But remember, if I say we have to go, we have to go. That’s the deal.”

Dad nodded. Danny let go. He sighed as Dad disappeared into the building. 

“Is the food really that good?” asked Danny. 

“Marianne grows a lot of her own herbs,” offered Mom with a shrug. “Everything she makes is at least decent. But, well,” she grimaced as she held the door open for her children. “The reason we liked her so much was that she always seemed interested in our research. We liked talking to someone who took us seriously.”

“Wonderful,” deadpanned Jazz.

The décor inside the dinner was bright red and floral. The seats and benches were upholstered in shiny, dyed leather. A long glass counter displayed pies and other desserts under bright lights. The air was warm and smelled faintly of cherries. A radio station played quietly in the background, blurring the chatter of the other guests. 

Danny rubbed his eyes again. Ugh. He was tired. Sleeping in a moving vehicle was a special kind of unrestful. Heh. Unrestful dead. More like unrest _ed_ dead. That was him. 

(Someday, he was going to track down the first person to say, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ and give them a stern talking to.)

“Marianne!” boomed Dad, waving at someone in the kitchen behind the order window.

There was a gasp. “Jack Fenton! Is that you?” A woman with greying brown curls leaned out, then ducked away briefly before reappearing through a door. “I haven’t seen you in years!” She threw her arms out, hugging first Dad and then Mom. 

Danny bristled at the perceived threat to his parents but managed to control himself. This was nothing. Everything was fine. Just because every one of his parents’ friends so far had something weird and potentially fatal going on so far, it didn’t give him the right to police their every interaction with other human beings. 

“Are these your kids?” asked Marianne, excitedly. “Oh, my goodness, you must be Jazz, and you’re Danny? I’ve only seen you in pictures, but you’ve grown so much. You’ll be as tall as your dad in no time.”

“Hope so,” said Danny, knowing there was no chance of that happening whatsoever.

Not with his human body, anyway. 

“I hope we’ll get a chance to talk,” she continued, “but I have things on the stove. Why don’t you go ahead and find a seat? We’ll get to you soon.”

“Looking forward to it, Marianne!” said Dad, waving again. 

“Is she alright?” asked Mom quietly as they slid into a corner booth. 

Danny wound up in between Mom and Jazz, which was good, because Dad tended to elbow whoever he was sitting by. In this case, Mom, who could take it.

“I think so?” He rubbed his eyes. “But I can’t just sense _everything_. Don’t forget that.”

“Stop rubbing your eyes,” said Mom. 

“They’re itchy,” said Danny. “I think I got some sleep sand in them or something.”

Mom’s expression softened. Danny blinked at it and wondered when he’d gotten so used to seeing an edge of suspicion on her face. 

“It could be allergies,” she said. “It’s that time of year. Or it could be that you keep rubbing them.” She tugged his hands away from his face. “Either way, it isn’t healthy to keep touching your eyes, sweetie.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t have a point, but Danny wasn’t entirely sure he _could_ get sick. Not anymore. Maybe if he was far enough away from Amity Park, spread thin enough between his two major physical manifestations… If his body was human enough… Maybe figuring that out could be a fun family bonding experience. Not. 

He yawned. He wanted to go back to sleep. Being in here, with the warm scented air and not-quite-white background noise, only made slumber more inviting. 

Still. His family’s ability to protect themselves was lacking. Danny at least had to stay conscious in case Marianne decided to channel the spirit of Locusta or something. Ancients, wouldn’t that be typical? 

A waiter came, introduced themself, and handed out menus. Danny failed to process most of the waiter’s prepared speech, and his eyes drifted down to the menu. 

It seemed… normal, for lack of a better word. Slightly worn, a couple stains on the paper behind the plastic protector. The pages had a border of blotchy red flowers. The items were all typical breakfast foods. Nothing jumped out at him. 

He wasn’t even hungry. Actually, if he thought about it, he was a little nauseated. Sometimes that happened when he didn’t eat for a while, though, so maybe he _was_ hungry, after all?

Why did bodies have to be so complicated?

“What are you getting?” asked Jazz, who was morally unable to make a food order until she’d taken a poll. 

“I don’t know,” said Danny, folding his arms on the table and letting his head rest on them. “I’ll probably just get whatever you’re getting.”

Jazz frowned at him and repeated the question to their parents.

The waiter came back after a few minutes. 

“I’ll have the Variety Breakfast!” said Dad, excitedly. 

“The number five, please,” said Maddie. “Sausage links, not bacon.”

“Um,” said Jazz. “How about the Red Flower Special?”

“Excellent choice,” said the waiter, smiling. “Marianne grows all the seasonings for that herself, and the presentation is lovely.”

“I mean, it’s pancakes, right?” asked Jazz, nervously. 

“It is, it is. What would you like for your side?” It took just a few seconds for the waiter to get the rest of Jazz’s order, then they turned to Danny. “And what are you having today?”

“Same as her,” said Danny, waving in Jazz’s general direction. 

“Good choice, good choice,” said the waiter. “We’ll be back soon!”

“Thanks!” said Dad. He reached over Mom to pat Danny on the shoulder. “See? This is just a completely normal restaurant.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, dubiously. He’d believe it when he got out of here with his questionably mortal coil and squishy, murderable human family intact. 

Okay. Maybe he was being a bit overdramatic, now. Was it because he was too far from the Amity portal? He’d been sure it wouldn’t significantly affect him, though. It wasn’t as if physical distance meant much in this context. Sure, he wasn’t on his home turf, but still…

Of course, he _was_ a teenager. Teenagers were supposed to be overdramatic. At least, that’s what he’d heard. Being a teenager didn’t come with a manual any more than being a half-ghost superhero did, quirky TV shows about middle school notwithstanding. 

Yeah. That sounded reasonable. He was a teenager who’d been woken _early,_ and it was still _early,_ and that meant the world was terrible. Excellent math. 

He sipped at the water the waiter had left him, pleased with himself. 

Which is when his and Jazz’s orders arrived. Danny caught a glimpse of red on him plate, abruptly recognized the prickling feeling in his eyes, expelled the water he was drinking from his nose, and propelled himself sideways across Mom and Dad and out of the booth. 

“Ah!” he said, pointing at the red-tinted pancakes and the pretty little flowers on top. 

The plating really was nice. Just like the waiter said. 

The whole dinner was staring at him.

“He’s got allergies,” explained Jazz, her voice just a little too high pitched. “Just—Really horrible allergies. To flowers like this.”

“Blood blossoms,” said Danny. He was reasonably certain the things wouldn’t kill him, he wasn’t sure that _anything_ short of something like Gula could kill him, but every encounter he had with them had been painful beyond belief, and he doubted that their being cooked would help very much with that. 

“Right. Blood blossoms. The name always slips by me… Haha.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Marianne, rushing out of the kitchen. “I am _so_ sorry. I didn’t know anyone was allergic to them! It’s just, you guys always talked about how they were lucky, and they got rid of bad spirits, so I thought I’d incorporate them, and they’re red, which is also lucky, and they taste _so good—_ ”

“Marianne,” said Mom, poking at one of the flowers, “where did you even _get_ these? I thought they were extinct.”

“Oh,” said Marianne, “my uncle, the one who died, well I guess they’re all dead, now, but… The one who left me enough to buy the dinner? He worked in seed conservation. I got his personal collection.” She sniffed, apparently on the edge of tears. 

“Ah,” said Mom, glancing at Danny. “That’s interesting. Um.” She slid out of the booth. “I’m really sorry, Marianne, but,” she gestured in Danny’s direction. “Food allergies.”

“He’s had breakouts just from being around them, before,” added Jazz, helpfully. 

“Oh, no, no, I understand. Um. One second, let me give you my number, I don’t want to fall out of contact again, oh, dear. Tracy! Give me your notepad!”

It took several more minutes for all the Fentons to make their way back outside, most of which Danny spent staring into the dinner through the large front windows, keeping an eye on his family. Maybe he didn’t have ‘allergies’ in the typical sense but being around blood blossoms was making his skin itch and prickle unpleasantly. 

Eventually, however, after Dad had shoved most of his order down his throat in a single go, they all got back into the GAV. 

“Oh. My. Gosh,” said Jazz. “You two have _no_ normal friends.”


	4. Chapter 4

“What’s his name again?” asked Danny, picking at the hem of his shirt. Today had been… _stressful,_ for a number of reasons. Partially the long drive and the disastrous breakfast stop, but also the fact that they were driving to meet a guy who was possibly:

  1. Vlad Masters version 2.
  2. A horrible hole in reality that would try to kill him.
  3. Possessed, like the Keens.
  4. Using ghost stuff without knowing it was ghost stuff.
  5. Messing around with ghost stuff while knowing it was ghost stuff, but without any of the skill to keep it from messing him up in turn.
  6. Crazy in some wonderful, unforeseen way. Or, finally,
  7. Mom and Dad’s one and only normal friend.



Danny really wasn’t holding for the last one, if he was being honest. After all, unlike Marianne, this guy _had_ been part of the Paranormal Research Club. 

Okay, maybe there _were_ other, positive, options. It was completely possible for someone to be weird or crazy and not be evil or even particularly threatening. Most ghosts were like that, in fact. 

Still.

“Frank Stone,” said Dad, cheerfully.

“If he turns out to be a Dr. Frankenstein type, I quit,” groaned Jazz. “Just so you know.”

“You won’t quit,” said Danny, with complete confidence. 

“He _is_ a doctor,” said Mom. “He was studying biology when we met him, for his undergraduate degree.”

“I quit; I’m telling you.”

“If you were really quitting,” reasoned Danny, “you’d just open the door and jump out.” He was pleased that Jazz was taking her turn as the resident overdramatic teenager. She carried that burden only rarely, but it did seem like long trips in the GAV really brought it out.

Maybe they made her remember the whole Youngblood thing. Who knew? Not Danny. 

“I’m not going to jump out of a moving vehicle. That’s more of a ‘you’ thing.”

“I can’t really dispute that,” said Danny, remembering all the times he had, in fact, jumped out of a moving vehicle. “In my defense, I can fly.”

“ _Why_ you can fly completely negates that as a defense.”

Danny held up a finger. “Okay, so, first off, reality is _not_ a moving vehicle.”

“Anything can be a moving vehicle, depending on your reference frame.”

“I agree on the moving part, but I dispute the vehicle part. _Vehicle_ comes from the Latin _vehiculum,_ which is ‘a means of conveyance.’ Reality is not a means of conveyance. Ergo, it cannot be a vehicle.”

“Not so fast, brother dear. Words change meaning over time.”

“Yeah, but that’s still what _vehicle_ means,” said Danny. “Unless you’re doing the medicine definition, anyway. I think.”

“Reality is a _metaphorical_ vehicle.”

“Well, if it’s metaphorical, it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s moving. Does it?”

“I’m… not sure.”

“I think this is the place!” exclaimed Dad, pulling into a parking lot. “Golding City University Medical Research Lab.”

“He doesn’t live here,” said Danny, slowly, “does he?” They weren’t ambushing this guy at work, were they? Even if he did turn out to be just as bad as all of Mom and Dad’s other friends, that was kind of mean. 

(Except, the Keens had been acceptable, once they were no longer possessed, and even the ghost possessing them hadn’t been too terrible.)

“He’s in the building behind the lab,” said Mom. “They let the teachers live on-campus, here. He’s expecting us, anyway.”

Right. Because they had called ahead, giving warning to their potential enemy. Curse you, common courtesy and sundry social conventions. 

Jazz was glaring at the small name sign on the building, which was just barely visible through the rain. “Golding City University,” she said, eyes narrowed. 

“Uh, is something wrong?”

“Frankenstein,” she said. 

“Um,” said Danny. He looked more closely at the name. “Golding City. Ingolstadt.” Oh, no. Now he was glaring at the name, too. Because Jazz was right, and it would be his luck. Their parents’ luck. Whatever. 

“Do you feel anything?” asked Dad. 

“No,” said Danny.

“Well,” said Mom. “We’ll have to run a bit, try to stay out of the rain. It’s too bad there isn’t a closer parking lot…”

“I could also just make us all intangible,” said Danny. 

“What?”

“I could make us all intangible. I do it all the time to miss the rain when no one is looking too closely.”

“Huh,” said Mom. 

“It isn’t as if my powers disappear when I’m not fighting ghosts,” said Danny. “I get to use them for other things.”

“I know, I know, it just seems… petty.”

“ _Petty_ is one of the best words to describe ghosts with,” said Danny. 

.

Frank Stone did not look like a Frankenstein. Not the monster, and not the ‘doctor.’ 

(Because Victor Frankenstein had not, in fact, become a doctor, had he?)

He was actually pretty average looking. The same age as Mom and Dad, of course. Brown hair. Glasses. Skinny, but not that skinny. Could Dr. Stone rob a grave? Probably. But carrying the loot away without some mechanical advantage was probably out. Unless it was _old_ loot. Dried out. Maybe just bones. 

Corpses were heavy. 

(No, Danny was not going to elaborate.)

Dr. Stone appeared to be somewhat confused about why Danny and Jazz were there. Evidently, Mom and Dad had managed to give the man the impression that they wanted to fund his research with the fortune they had inherited from Vlad.

Which, incidentally, had been inherited by Danny, who couldn’t really do much with it until he was twenty-five. Not that he was particularly keen on funding… Whatever it was that Dr. Stone was researching. 

Maybe that would be different if he could tell what Dr. Stone was talking about. Danny wasn’t stupid, far from it, and had a good background in any number of esoteric subjects, but, well. It was hard to rival an adult lifetime of learning and research. Especially when he didn’t have any context. 

Mom and Dad’s briefing on Dr. Stone had generally focused on what he had been interested in as a member of the Paranormal Research Club, not his true field of study.

“Oh,” said Mom, suddenly, “this is about your organ transplant project, isn’t it? You really need to provide more context. When you just jump right in like that, even we’ll get lost!”

Okay. Danny felt better. 

“Well, yes,” said Dr. Stone. “I have been working on this off and on since college, you know how it is. I know you kept up with that portal business!” He flashed a nervous smile and set his coffee mug down on his coffee table. It made a soft chinking sound against the glass. “But the university gave me a grant, Vladco’s been donating some supplies—From their chemical division, mostly—and I’ve been having a lot of success! I can’t wait to show you. We’ve actually got a few specimens in near-stasis right now, all from mice. We’re going to be implanting one tomorrow. See how it functions.”

“Have you implanted any before?” asked Mom, leaning forward. 

“A few, but, well. I can’t say they were resounding successes. The most recent subject only lasted a few days… Although, that is better than the first! We’ve been adjusting some of our ratios.”

“Say, Frank,” said Dad. “What chemicals are you using for this, anyway? I know you’re using them in conjunction with low temperatures, but keeping crystals from forming in the flesh—”

“Yes, yes, that’s always been the problem with cryogenics,” agreed Dr. Stone. Then they dove back into jargon and technical language. 

Danny glanced sideways at Jazz, uneasy. Chemicals. From Vladco. Yeah. Not suspicious at all. 

He leaned over. “Ten dollars says that he’s using ectoplasm to reanimate dead bodies.”

“I’m not taking that bet. Do you feel anything weird from him?” Jazz whispered back. 

“ _Weird_ , yes, but…” Danny bit his lip. “I’m not sensing any… doors. Or ghosts.”

“Okay,” said Jazz. “So, when we do find his mad science lab full of dead body parts, what do we do?”

“Well… Nothing? As long as they’re legal dead body parts, I guess. You know, from organ donors, or people who donated their bodies to science. I mean…” He shrugged. “ _You’ve_ read Frankenstein, too. And met Ellie.”

“Hm. True,” said Jazz. “I have to check my biases. I’m still quitting, though. As soon as we find his Frankenstein stuff. Just so you know.”

“No, you aren’t.”

Jazz just sighed. 

.

Danny walks silently through the halls of the research facility. True, Dr. Stone was planning on giving his family a tour of his workspace first thing tomorrow and had implied that other researchers would be doing the same, but Danny believed in being prepared. 

Well. Sometimes. He was allowed to be inconsistent and contradictory. Like any teen, he was still learning how to exist. 

Maybe he should stop comparing himself to ‘any teen,’ though. It was beginning to feel dishonest, even in his own head. Even though, technically, it was true. 

Anyway. 

This place was kind of creepy. At least, he presumed a normal person would find it creepy. Too bad he didn’t know any normal people. Sam would think it was cool. Tucker would be freaking out because it was a _medical_ research lab. Ancients, Danny was as bad as his parents. 

It _did_ have a number of features that one would typically only find on the set of a horror movie, however, so he felt fairly confident in his assessment of its creepiness. Also, he had encountered at least five different crimes against nature and sanity (it took one to know one), and he hadn’t even gotten to Dr. Stone’s lab yet. 

He was impressed. He hadn’t expected such a high concentration outside of Amity Park or Vlad’s hideouts. 

At the thought of Vlad, Danny drooped. Yeah. He still wasn’t over the stupid fruitloop. Still hated the fact that he had died. 

Back to the crimes against nature. Ectoplasm was definitely a component, if a small one. Hard to get things to glow that precise, reality bending shade of green otherwise. Also, well. Danny can sense ectoplasm.

And… Now he was in a room of jars full of diluted ectoplasm and… He sniffed. Formaldehyde? He frowned and decided the number, size, and arrangement of jars was suspicious. He walked around the table. Yep. That was in the outline of a human body. Yep. 

Honestly, this wasn’t any more alarming than the living mice impaled with various glowing needles, or the disturbingly brown heart beating in a fish tank a few rooms back. It was, also, significantly less alarming than the prosthetic face (mainly because, dang, that thing looked realistic), the (fresh) skeleton someone had been injecting ectoplasm into (yikes), and the weird flesh… blob… thing that someone had just left out in their workspace. 

Still. This was another point for the ‘someone is building a Frankenstein’s monster in this building’ theory, and Danny had kind of been hoping that he was wrong. 

He walked out of the room, on alert for random murderous corpse monsters (or sad corpse monsters that needed a shoulder to cry on, a restraining order against their creators, and a loving home). Or mad scientists. Because, at this point, he was fairly certain that everyone who worked here was crazy, and not necessarily in the fun way Mom and Dad were. 

He was glad they had decided to sleep in the GAV and ignore Dr. Stone’s invitation to stay in his apartment. 

Dr. Stone’s office was just next door. His lab, just beyond that. Danny approached cautiously, his ghost half on high alert, and his deeper self stirring uneasily. 

He laid a hand flat against the door, and that stirring became wakefulness.

Crimes against nature. Hubris. _Pride._

Superbia. It had to be. 

A hole. A _wound._

Well. This was fast. Even with the Keens’ list of Paranormal Research Club members they had encountered while possessed, Danny hadn’t expected to find another thing like Gula so quickly. 

He hadn’t _wanted_ to. Despite his outward pessimism, he had hoped that there weren’t any more. 

After several frozen moments where Danny braced himself for an attack, he realized one wasn’t forthcoming. The tear beyond the door had not noticed him, was not trying to consume him. 

So, he had a choice. He could either try to deal with this alone, right now, or he could sneak away and tell his family what he had found. Both choices had pros and cons. 

Before even a second had passed, Danny was easing away from the door. He hadn’t _quite_ promised to share if he felt anything strange, if he had detected anything bad, but… It was a near thing, and he didn’t want to be dishonest with his family after they had been so accepting of all his… Stuff. 

Yeah. Call it stuff. Nice and generic. Covers everything. 

Plus, his encounter with Gula had confirmed that he needed backup. 

He refrained from calling on his powers on the way out. He didn’t want to draw attention. The limits of the doors to the place which should not be mentioned were largely unknown to him.

Luckily, the doors weren’t alarmed, and he got back to the GAV without a problem. He poked Jazz awake first. 

“Hey,” he said, “we’ve got a problem.”

.

“This portal is just… Sitting there,” said Mom.

“Yep.”

“In Frank’s office.”

“Well, I think it might actually be in the lab, but yes. It’s kind of freaking me out.”

“Is Frank sleeping in his lab?” asked Dad, stroking the stubble on his chin. 

“No, I checked that before I went in,” said Danny. “He’s in his apartment.”

“You just… broke into his apartment?” asked Mom. 

Danny shrugged. “I didn’t break anything,” he said. “But, I mean, what else was I supposed to do?”

For a moment, it looked like Mom was about to argue or scold him, but she shook her head. “Alright, then someone else is in his office.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure if these portals need a person attached or not. Using person in the very loosest of senses, because…” He made a gesture he hoped would be interpreted as a soul being forcibly removed from a body without killing the body. 

“You don’t think it’s in the, um,” Jazz also made a vague gesture. 

“You mean the hypothetical Frankenstein’s monster he’s made? Yeah. I think that’s likely. Also, judging from the sheer amount of, um, weird stuff in the other labs, I’d say it’s influencing everyone and everything around it, too.”

“Is that a thing it can do?” asked Mom. 

“I mean, I can do that,” said Danny. He paused. “’I’ in this case being the portal. Yeah. That’s why Amity Park is so… Amity Park.”

Mom breathed out, slowly. “Sweetie, trust me on this, Amity Park was strange long before we made the portal.

“Well, yes?” said Danny, not seeing what that had to do with it. “So?”

“So, that strangeness couldn’t be caused by the portal.”

“Mom. I’m—It’s a _hole_ in _reality._ Do you think it’s going to obey the laws of cause and effect? You went to Amity Park because it was already a ‘thin spot,’ right? I was already there.”

Mom looked vaguely ill. 

“Okay,” said Jazz. “Let’s table that discussion for right now. What are we going to do about this? Break in? Wait for our ‘tour’ tomorrow?”

“I don’t like the idea of waiting for Dr. Stone to give us a tour,” said Danny. “I don’t want to give them time to prepare for us.”

“He doesn’t know what we’re here for, though,” said Dad. “Does he?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny. “I can’t read minds.”

“Yet,” added Jazz.

“Do you think he even knows about the…” It was Mom’s turn to enter the gesturing game. 

“Let’s just call it a hell portal for the sake of communication,” said Danny, despite the fact that the term did not do the actuality justice. “Or Superbia for this particular one. I think this must be Superbia, anyway.” He didn’t want to imagine the possibility of even more of these things out there. 

“I’m not sure how he couldn’t notice that _something_ strange was going on,” said Dad. “Even if he was using ectoplasm and other supernatural elements in his research, we gave him a good grounding in what to expect from ectoplasm in college.”

“Yeah,” said Jazz. “But not everyone is like you and Mom. Your college days were over two decades ago.”

Something moving in the dark and rain beyond the GAV windows, catching Danny’s eye. He pushed past his family to get a better look, blinking to adjust his eyes. 

“Heck,” he said. “We have a mob.”

“What?” exclaimed Dad, rushing to the console to turn on the GAV’s exterior floodlights. 

They illuminated Dr. Stone and a crowd of college and graduate students quite nicely. Their eyes reflected a dim red. The GAV was, as far as Danny could see, surrounded.

 _Very_ briefly, the thought of gunning the GAV and crashing through the crowd crossed his mind. It was just as quickly dismissed. 

He didn’t know what the line between _influenced_ and _mind controlled_ was, or how easily Superbia could cross it. It was even possible that the ‘hell portal’ could vault over both of those and land directly in _possession._

“Ghost shield?” suggested Danny. 

“Will it do anything?” asked Mom. 

“Won’t hurt,” said Danny with a shrug. 

Mom flipped the switch. 

“What are we going to do?” asked Jazz, softly. “Wait them out?”

“Realistically,” said Danny, “we don’t have enough food and water to do that. With this many people, they could take turns watching us.”

“Call the police?” suggested Maddie. The other three turned to look at her. “They are still human, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, frowning. “But I don’t know how much, um, _agency_ they have right now. If we were in Amity, I’d say sure, our police understand, mostly, but… Also, bringing extra hostages into this might not be a good idea.”

“If it’s the campus police that would get called, they might be affected, too,” said Jazz. 

“They have campus police? How do you know?”

“This college sent me a brochure once.”

“Right. Um. I could always just fly us out of here,” said Danny.

“Assuming they don’t have ranged attacks,” said Mom, dubiously.

“Hm. Yeah. I think I could lift the GAV, and then we could just leave the shield on.”

“Assuming the shield does anything.”

Danny shrugged. “I can always just try to fight them outright. I’d prefer not to do that, though.”

Mom inhaled as if she were about to say something but was cut off by a loud noise from outside.

“ _Jack~ Maddie~ I know you’re in there.”_ That was Dr. Stone’s voice, warped by a megaphone speaker. “ _Why don’t you come out and see what I’ve done? I dare say I’ve exceeded even our wildest dreams from college.”_ A long pause. _“I even made a portal… Weren’t you trying to get one of those? Isn’t that what got good old Vlad hospitalized?”_ There was laughter. Too much laughter. 

The mob was laughing, too.

Superbia. Pride. 

Danny knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to walk out and deal with the _threat_ that was grating on his every sense. But… He knew that prideful actions were contraindicated under the present circumstances. 

Influence. Right. How much could Danny be influenced?

How much could his family be influenced?

He looked up at his parents, seeking guidance. They seemed uncertain, too. 

“ _I didn’t destroy any lives- I made new life. New life! Powered by an interdimensional portal, oh, yes… Can you imagine the application? Can you imagine a new world?”_

“Okay, he didn’t seem like this in the apartment,” muttered Jazz. “We have human nonlethal weapons, right?”

“Still have to worry about running people over,” said Danny. He looked back at the lab building. “We could try to cut this off at the source. They aren’t protecting the building. They’re using it as part of their perimeter.”

Eyes turned to the dimly lit building. 

“We can cover you,” offered Dad. 

“I don’t like this any better than you flying off with us,” said Mom. “But… It offers a more permanent solution.”

Danny should have gone after it when he was in the building the first time. Well. Time only rewound for one ghost, and that ghost wasn’t him. 

Unless he counted… Never mind. The point was, despite all his other wonderful and troubling features, Danny couldn’t go back and change a decision he’d already made. Agonizing over it was a waste of time and brain power. 

Dad got behind the wheel. Jazz crawled up into the well-disguised turret. Maddie manned the other weapons. 

Danny stood at the door, ready to run, ready to transform as soon as he was through the shield. 

Family bonding activities. So much fun. 

.

The mob attacked before he got the door open. He still made it to the building.

.

Danny didn’t bother with doors or windows or halls. He remembered what floor Dr. Stone’s office was on, and, now that he was sensitized to it, he could feel Superbia. He went through the walls, straight as an arrow.

(He wondered, briefly, if he was being as bigoted as he’d often felt his parents to be. If he was ascribing more evil to the portals to the Red Country than was warranted. If he was simply holding up a dark mirror and seeing what he feared from himself.)

(But no. He did not _command_ like that. He did not force his people to assemble armies in the night or attack people. He kept them safe. He had _rules._ )

The lab was awash in sick red not-light that burned in Danny’s mind. It was barely physically perceptible, more present in senses that couldn’t translate to human terms than anything to do with Danny’s eyes, ghostly or not. 

In the center of the lab, on an operation table, was a stitched-together corpse. Perhaps, under other circumstances, it would have been a very pretty corpse. A young woman with long dark hair and broad shoulders. 

Its chest had been torn open. Half-in half-out of the cavity was a red orb, the source of the not-light, like some sick imitation of a ghost core. 

(It reminded Danny of Freakshow’s staff, and he realized that he never did find out where that horrid thing had come from.)

They had been trying to make something like Danny. 

He felt like he had eaten those blood blossom pancakes. 

Danny gritted his teeth and let _his_ light, white-green and clear, fill his hands. Ectoplasm fought against the miasma in the air, an oddly purifying presence. It wasn’t enough to chase away the _wrongness._ This wasn’t his space. 

The fight against Gula was different. Both he and it had been within nominally living bodies. They had been next to the heart of Danny’s territory, his home ground. Danny had been tricked and trapped, taken off guard, unable to use the tricks he had grown used to while fighting ghosts and Vlad. 

(He could feel Superbia in his mind, _pride_ urging him forward towards error. Pride in his abilities, in his mind, in his family.)

Danny drifted sideways, watching. Listening. Other things in the building were stirring. Sparks of wrongness growing and twisting, warping into fountains and springs. This whole building was full of it. Rotten to the bones. It pressed against his teeth. 

_Careful._

He had to be careful. 

The orb shone. 

(Too much like Freakshow’s staff.)

( _Influence,_ Danny remembered. Just how close was it to mind control?)

Doing this as a human was impossible. Trying to fight _that_ as a ghost was unwise. 

The always-open always-closed door that both contained and laid within Danny’s soul shifted. So did the corpse on the table, its constituent parts sliding over each other gruesomely. Death had lost its hold, lost its meaning. The ghost that was Danny twisted, and he was too human, too alive. 

_Special little thing. You think you can defeat us._

He could. He could open himself and wash all this away in an instant. He could burn with electric fire and the cold of deep space. He could reach out. The orb would be as dust under his hand. 

He didn’t move. 

_In thinking you become…_

Un-light burned up from the grooves in the tile floor. It didn’t reach the soles of his boots, didn’t reach his soul. He gritted his teeth. 




_YOUR VICTORY IS OURS._

“Wow, you picked the wrong person to use that strategy on,” said Danny, out loud. Internally, he pulled on the delicate and frayed strands of reality that persisted even here. “I have so much imposter syndrome and anxiety that it isn’t even funny. I know I can’t beat you. Not here.”

But then, he didn’t have to. 

He found the right string and pulled. He found the key and opened the door. Death was in the room again. Danny could move again. Not so much the pile of flesh in front of him. It was hard, it _hurt_ , to keep hold of something like this, but half of Danny _was_ this, was dead, even if he had far too many halves to ever be whole. 

Ice coated the floor, the tiles cracking under the sudden temperature change. He dropped to the floor and was human. 

An impossible thing. 

And behind the human—

Well. Danny didn’t have to defeat Superbia. It wasn’t like Gula, didn’t have that strength, that experience. He just had to make it so the things that would, _could_. 

(Danny had rules. Some of them were to protect himself.)

He walked over to the orb. Ultimately, it was just a representation, not Superbia itself. Still. He put his foot down on it and slowly transferred his weight to it until it cracked. Until it splintered. Until it shattered. Until he ground its dust under his heel. 

Then, the building collapsed. Danny didn’t move, didn’t have to move. He was a ghost again, floating in the air, exactly where he had been, all the floors having passed harmlessly through him. 

Outside, the faculty and student body of the college were sprawled in piles on the ground. The GAV was, somehow, halfway up a tree. A shockingly sturdy tree. Several statues were in pieces. 

The sun was coming up. 

Danny put a hand to his chest and assessed himself. Yes. Still here. Still himself. The Ghost Zone still sang in his bones, in his core. He was still anchored in Amity Park. Everything in order. 

This place, though… This place would be tainted for _years,_ a thin spot _forever._ He could feel it, now. Why couldn’t he feel it before, when they drove in?

He shuddered. Then he flew down to the GAV and knocked on the window. Mom rolled it down. 

“Want me to fly us away to somewhere secluded before the cops get called and we get asked a bunch of awkward questions?” he asked. 

Mom closed her eyes. “Please do,” she said.


End file.
